In my youth I enjoyed Shel Silverstein’s book The Missing Piece. It was a delightful story of a little circle who sang and happily searched for its missing triangular piece. One day he found that piece and became whole. However, the happiness he perceived to have experienced singly was lost. He could no longer casually meander through the flowers or enjoy the things he did while he was incomplete. He found in his completeness he could not sing and traveled much more quickly. At the end of the book, he decides to set aside the little triangle piece and continue happily along his way.
Silverstein’s little round piece did have one thing right, the concept that we surrender ourselves to our partner when we marry, but not in a negative way. We truly cannot experience the sweetest joys of marriage and family life outside of God’s guiding principles. Some of my most precious moments have been the simple times with my husband, children and grandchildren.
As I look back on that beloved children’s book, it takes on a new meaning for me. This story could easily be the story of society’s current trending outlook on marriage. Many young people today look at marriage as a social contract that seems ideal in its concept, but once in the experience when changes or hardships arise, they easily lay it aside to continue on in their perceived happiness individually. Elder Bruce Hafen said it best in his talk Covenant Marriage:
When troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away. They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they’re receiving what they bargained for. But when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work them through. They marry to give and to grow, bound by covenants to each other, to the community, and to God. Contract companions each give 50 percent; covenant companions each give 100 percent.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are privilege to know doctrinal principles that help them understand the completeness and sanctity of a covenant marriage. A marriage that will last through time and eternity and allow partners to become one with another. In a covenanted marriage, partners are brought together in a relationship that is bigger than their individual parts. A covenant marriage is essential to Heavenly Father’s plan for His children.
We are taught in The Family a Proclamation to the World “… that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of his children.” Having a doctrinal outlook and understanding the meaning of marriage in God’s plan for us, allows us to focus on the “importance of eternal marriage” (Elder Bednar). Elder Bednar further goes on to state:
As a husband and wife are each drawn to the Lord, as they learn to serve and cherish one another, as they share life experiences and grow together and become one, and as they are blessed through the uniting of their distinctive natures, they begin to realize the fulfillment that our Heavenly Father desires for His children. Ultimate happiness, which is the very object of the Father’s plan, is received through the making and honoring of eternal marriage covenants.
I have but the smallest glimpse of this reward that awaits us. I know that as my husband and I work through the tough times and draw nearer to God, we will be strengthened in faith and in our marriage and in our family. My family brings me the sweetest moments of joy here on earth. I hope for the opportunity to expand that joy through the promise of an eternal marriage that will bind us together as one for all time and throughout generations.
Photo Credit:
https://www.facebook.com/TwoBecomingOne/
Sources:
Bednar, D. A. Marriage Is Essential to His Eternal Plan. Ensign. doi: www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2006/06
Hafen, B. C. (1996, November). Covenant Marriage. Ensign.
The Family: A Proclamation to the World https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/topics/family-proclamation
Life Lessons Learned 